My Favorite Joke
The good folks at City Journal have posted this essay on my favorite joke — and why almost no one else seems to think it’s funny!
When I first heard this joke about ten years ago, I laughed off and on—mostly on—for close to a week. I thought then and think now that it’s the funniest joke I’ve ever heard. I immediately began telling it to everyone I knew; over the last decade, I’ve told it countless times. And I’ve discovered two fascinating things about it. First, almost no one else thinks it’s funny. Most people don’t even crack a smile. Second, those few people who do think it’s funny think, like myself, that it’s the funniest joke ever—and a preponderance of them are, like myself, writers of fiction.
I’ve wondered about this phenomenon a lot. Why do story writers, almost exclusively, find this joke hilarious?
For the joke — and the rest of this short essay — click here. And check out the rest of this terrific journal while you’re at it!
I read it. I am not a fiction writer. Nothin’. I got nothin’.
I laughed because I appreciated the absurdity of the joke. However, I think that the joke might be less amusing if I heard instead of read it because then its effect is largely dependent upon the skill of the person telling the joke. I am not a writer, for the record.
It took me a few minutes. One of those time jokes, I guess. What makes it work is the “I think that’s when I made my mistake” line. It helps as well if you can visualize the situation. The orange is the size of an orange. I do fiction- but I’m an amateur.
I’m not a fiction writer but I read a lot of fiction.
The joke is based on the absurd. The set up is that the person hearing the joke anticipates that man made some kind of error that resulted in an orange for a head. The person hearing the joke is trying to come up with whatever the clever explanation is.
Then there isn’t one. He just wished for an orange for a head. Absurd.
And yes, it is like electing a man who wants to fundamentally change the country. Except it is not as funny.
Unfortunately, I had to have it explained to me. There was a time when I might have found that enormously amusing, but alas, I didn’t. I’m a writer, too.
Maybe that’s why my writing has been so flat lately.
I was also expecting a play on the joke with the punchline, “I asked for a little head.” Or another where a man has a little man on his shoulder who keeps kicking over his drinks in the bar, and he explains to the bartender that he once asked a genie for “a 12-inch prick.”
The orange-head joke reminds me more of this one:
Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Two. One to hold the giraffe, and the other to fill the bathtub with multicolored machine tools.
I think finding the humor in your “orange head” joke depends entirely on your ability to vividly imagine the scene.
It doesn’t quite work in writing, IMO.
“You should know this already.”
Sometimes we get exactly what we ask for. And sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it ain’t.
Actually, I did like it. I liked LeeJohnson’s surrealist joke somewhat. Yours makes more sense to me because I’m a Christian, and the gospel is “foolishness to them that perish.” I agree. We don’t know what is good for us. Our desires are perverse and self-defeating. Most die with the Owner’s manual collecting dust on the shelf. It’s the saddest joke though. Not really a joke.
So basically, it’s funny because it’s not funny? The joke is that there is no joke?
sdfsdfsd ssdfsd ssfdfsdfsd asfsdsd! Oh, look, random nonsense. Are you rolling on the floor yet?
I don’t think it separates the creative from the non-creative. I think it separates those who “get” existentialism and random pieces of metal posing as art from those of a more logical bent. Sorry, one hand clapping is nonsense, she doesn’t have a banjo growing out of her head, there are no square circles, and this isn’t a joke nor does it require creativity. Any idiot can tack randomness onto the end of a story.
lol
Why would he ask for an orange for a head!?!!!
lololol!!!
Why would anyone do that??!!??
rotflolololololol!!!
It’s not a question of whether or not _someone_ would do that, it’s why!?
It’s not funny because it’s nonsense tacked on at the end. It’s funny because it’s so damn human.
Or better – I think it separates those of us who understand Ann Coulter’s line, “Just beause something is counterintuitive doesn’t make it true” from the rest of you.
I got it, but I didn’t think it was hilarious. I guess that explains why you’re famous and I’m not.
They actually took a poll a few years ago on the funniest joke and the joke where two explorers go backpacking and one of them keeps saying what a nice tent we have with stars on the roof and the other yells they stole our tent came number one. Most people I have talked to don’t think this joke was that funny either.
I laughed out loud.
Laughed the first time. Laughed harder the second time.
I laughed. I write a little. I sometimes see the ending of a story first, and write towards it, but just can’t see the path from what I’ve got written to the ending I want. I bet that’s why the story resonates for writers.
Then again, anyone who’s ever choked can relate to the joke.
One other thing. I’ve watched enough of your KOC’s to hear the pre-bottom-falling-out catch in your voice at “and I think this may have been where I made my mistake”.
I honestly found the joke pointless. The punchline just seems to fall flat, or not even be a punchline.
Funniest joke ever.
I can’t speak to Booker, but McKee and Campbell dance on the surface of truth. The spells they weave aren’t unworthy, but there’s a much deeper magic that drives the worlds.